BRUCE GILDEN

Written text by Teresa Siza, Director of the Portuguese Center of Photography.


Feeling the seduction of Bruce Gilden's images has to be understood as a dangerous challenge-dangerous because it upsets and questions us in a field where realization is more difficult- to our more spontaneous convictions marked by the irrational of desire. We recognize in these images the fearful complicity of the group against the "other" and we feel that that "other" is ourselves; we review the many "Esmeraldas" in our imaginary and wandering gypsy of our eternal envy as sedentary people and our feeling of guilt, we foresee a challenge in the gaze with other people as excluded as we are from a larger community, resulting in a magical space of fascination. Bruce Gilden possesses a photographic feeling which grasps reality tension, as latent conflict, and because of that, brings up in the spectator-participant the anxiety of knowledge, of analysis. And it's all about knowledge. In this perspective of knowing, in few places and ages such as this one, here in Braga today, where the celebration is one of mutual understanding, it is so suitable and urgent to face the challenge of recognizing oneself in these strong and very beautiful images, no matter who is observing. Cooperating with the Civil Government of Braga's initiative was one of the possible ways of reaching a certain tree or stone that can be the place of refuge that can create the sense of community.